Africa In the World

It feels fitting that our final post of 2024 is to share 'The Wilderness,' a parable told by Alan Storey during our festival this September. Building on the biblical story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and their 40 years in the wilderness, Alan draws a parallel to South Africa’s journey out of apartheid, through the wilderness and toward a promised land. “The first question that God asks humanity [in the ancient Hebrew texts] is, ‘Where are you? Tell me where you are. What do you see around you?’” Why does this question matter? If we are lost, Alan suggests, then the first step is to describe our present, no matter how grim, because if we don’t accurately locate ourselves, how do we plot a course to somewhere else? “There’s a king,” Alan continues, “The king is fearful and forgetful. Forgetful of what? Forgetful of the interconnectedness between themselves and their people and all other peoples... And fearful...A fearful leader is the most dangerous leader because a fearful leader is a loveless leader." Like all good stories, this story, with the help of a master storyteller, shapeshifts into our present day; an archetype for a journey out of an unacceptable present, toward a promised land, but through a difficult wilderness, that cannot be avoided. And, as Alan reminds us, 'Unlike the ancients, we don’t get to leave our land, we have to transform it.' As we mark the Day of Reconciliation in South Africa (on December 16), we’re pleased to share an extract below, along with the full session/parable available on our YT channel here: https://lnkd.in/dYk9eeTw    P.S. You may have noticed Alan's reference to Bright Blue’s Weeping. Released as a protest song in apartheid’s last days, its refrain, "It wasn't roaring, it was weeping," feels as resonant today - here, in Palestine, Syria, Sudan, and many places around the world - as it felt then. For a refresh, or if it's not familiar, you can listen here: https://lnkd.in/duBfDAmm Dele Olojede Dr. Sizakele M. #africaintheworld #africaintheworld2024 #alanstorey #apartheid #southafricanhistory #dayofreconciliation #thewilderness #racism #freedom #BDS

COMMENT: It’s easy to be sceptical of pan-Africanism. The notion that Africa isn’t just a geographical space but a metaphysical entity whose population, though genetically the most diverse on earth, shares culture, heritage and a common fate, can seem dubious. But, the idea is bred of necessity not genetics, says Patrick Gathara.

AI advancements sometimes feel like sets of waves breaking, one after the other: another headline, another claim, another promise. Amidst the churn, it’s hard to work out what is real, what is overblown, and what we should be paying attention to and worrying about (hint: it’s not the robots). In September, at the Africa In the World festival, Dr. Abeba Birhane, with Alix Dunn, helped us do just that in a conversation titled: ‘Like Gods Among Men’—What Artificial Intelligence Is and Isn’t: Separating the Signal From the Noise. In this discussion, Abeba and Alix cover a variety of key topics related to AI, and it’s well worth listening to. At its core, though, the message was clear: question the narratives, the spins—the stories we’re being told—because beneath the veneer of objectivity and progress, AI, if adopted without caution and critical reflection, has the potential to cause catastrophic societal impacts that will disproportionately harm already disadvantaged minorities. 📺 We’re excited to share the full discussion on our YouTube channel here: https://lnkd.in/dC_v_HQG 👇 And an extract below. Dr. Abeba is a leading cognitive scientist, Senior Advisor in AI Accountability at the Mozilla Foundation, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin. And Alix leads an agency, Computer Says Maybe, which is "animated by the idea that technology will impact the world and that better futures are up for grabs." 🙏 Thank you to Abeba and Alix for bringing their expertise and sobering perspectives to this important conversation. Dele Olojede Dr. Sizakele M. Luminate Naomi Alexander Naidoo Stias #aiaccountability #aiethics #AIandSociety #africaintheworld #africaintheworld2024

"So I think of a quote that guides me and guides the foundation from Martin Luther King, that doing the work and understanding that there will be finite disappointments can never overshadow the fact you have to have infinite hope and patience to do the right thing." John Deasy #AfricaIntheWorld2024 At the recent #AfricaIntheWorld festival, john deasy, President of the Bezos Family Foundation, and 'Tokunboh Ishmael, CFA Managing Director of Nigeria-based Alitheia Capital, led a discussion titled "Rethinking Philanthropy." Their conversion explored some of the big questions around philanthropic giving. How has philanthropy evolved? What approaches are truly effective? And most importantly, how do we ensure communities are at the centre of solutions? John highlighted the shifts in approaches over time—from patronage and strategic philanthropy, which often directed resources with limited community input, to empowerment philanthropy. This approach starts with a simple belief: the people closest to the challenges know best what they need. Tokunboh pointed out the need for more proximate capital to address local problems, sharing that as an impact investor, she almost only gets money from foreign development finance institutions, "who are using their taxpayers' money to solve problems in my country…What can we do to get domestic philanthropists involved in proximate problems?" This provoked an interesting discussion about broadening the definition of philanthropy to include the significant informal giving that happens in many African contexts, better fostering a culture of giving and finding direct ways—through various vehicles—to incentivise domestic philanthropic contributions. This session offered valuable insights, including the obligation of wealth, the role of intermediaries, lessons learned during the COVID pandemic—particularly the rapid, cross-sector collaboration in funding—and the critical need to involve young people in designing interventions. 🙏🏾A big thank you to John and Tokunboh for sharing your valuable expertise and experience; these kinds of conversations challenge us to think differently and to do better. ✨ We share an extract below, and you can catch the full conversation on our YT channel, along with other festival content: https://lnkd.in/dAxsxYBd #empowermentphilanthropy #BezosFamilyFoundation #africanphilanthropy #impactinvesting #africaintheworld Dele Olojede Dr. Sizakele M.

When we think of AI, 'the cloud' may come to mind - a weightless disembodied source of information and computational potential. But, AI infrastructure is physical. Think huge industrial farms with very material needs; water to cool them, energy to power them, and land to house them. In Alix Dunn's Computer Says Maybe podcast series on AI and the environment, one episode, featuring Bóxī Wú and Jenna R.. examines the environmental impact of AI, focusing on data centers, the ways these infrastructure projects affect communities, and how those communities are pushing back. Listening to this conversation, I was reminded of a passage from The Second Body by #DaisyHildyard, where she's thinking about our interconnected world: "You are stuck in your body right here, but in a technical way, you could be said to be in India and Iraq, you are in the sky causing storms, and you are in the sea herding whales towards the beach...You have an individual body in which you exist, eat, sleep, and go about your day-to-day life. You also have a second body which has an impact on foreign countries and on whales...a body which is not so solid as the other one, but much larger." Hildyard's vision of our hidden 'second body,' which affects distant places and people, offers a way to think about AI's unseen footprint. While we interact with AI as something intangible, the cloud has its infrastructure—a 'body'—spread across vast geographies and impacting resources and communities in very tangible ways. As Bóxī Wú notes (in the podcast), movements against this infrastructure aren't just about the data centres (or pipelines, power plants, etc.); it is also about "the social, political, economic systems that make that infrastructure profitable. Who's benefiting, who has a say, and also what sort of futures it might lock us into?" It's a timely conversation, especially in the wake of the U.S. election and the rising concerns around Musk's potential outsize influence on government policy (and other tech "accelerationists") who want "radical" innovation but without the red tape. The Computer Says Maybe podcast offers on-point discussions about all things technology and society, and this episode is no exception. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/gx3UcmqU.

“If you think about the imperatives for humanity between now and 2050, we need to move to overwhelmingly renewable electricity, and we need to electrify everything. Stop actually burning fossil fuels in our day-to-day lives. Either we are going to give up on getting to net zero by 2050, or over the next 25 years we are going to see the fastest, most fundamental, most far-reaching and comprehensive change in every sector of the global economy that humanity has ever seen." —James Mwangi, #AfricaIntheWorld2024 What a pleasure to interview James at the recent Africa In the World festival. He is that rare combination of being both hopeful and pragmatic; he imagines an Africa - and a world  - different to the one we inhabit now and is marking out the steps to get there. 🗨️ Below is an extract from our conversation; and you can find the full festival discussion, The Future Is Now: The Case for an Immediate Energy Transition, on our YouTube channel here: https://lnkd.in/gNGwgQzj James is the founder and CEO of Africa Climate Ventures, where he focuses on building and accelerating transformative climate-smart and carbon-negative businesses across the continent. ⚡ You can learn more about his work at africaclimateventures.com Dr. Sizakele M. Dele Olojede Climate Action Platform for Africa (CAP-A) STIAS: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study #africaintheworld #climatepositivegrowth #climateactionafrica

For all you interested in urbanization and its life, ecologies, infrastructures, dealings, and politics—you must lay your hands on the new Cityscapes Magazines, issue 11, which is being launched in Cape Town on 31 October 2024 by its curators and stalwarts Tau Tavengwa and Edgar Pieterse at African Centre for Cities: https://lnkd.in/dCZUqKFs. It comes 11 years after the first issue (which you can read about here: https://lnkd.in/djND46Ek. Cityscapes Magazine has been a powerful tool and companion to reshape how we think about cities and urbanization and thus the world. It is unapologetic from the South, but to the world. Check out the links!

“We, until this year, had never had a vaccine against a parasitic disease of humans. None.” - Dr. Adrian Hill, Africa In the World, 2024 Last year, there wasn't a deployed malaria vaccine in Africa. This year, there are two. This is probably the most revolutionary development in our lifetimes, and yet, for many of us, it's a story we mostly missed. And it's an important story because every year, over 600,000 people die of malaria, and of these deaths, 95% are in Africa, mostly among children under five. At the #AfricaIntheWorld2024 festival, we heard from two of the leading scientists who worked on the new R21 malaria vaccine. Developed by Dr. Adrian Hill's team at the University of Oxford and clinically tested by Dr. Ally Olotu's team at the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, it is expected to save hundreds of thousands of lives this decade and lead to serious efforts toward eliminating and eradicating malaria in the next. These vaccines, then, are good news for our continent. In fact, according to Malaria No More, reducing malaria by 90% by 2030 could increase Africa's GDP by $16 billion per year. But, as Dr. Ally Olotu pointed out, "We cannot solve this problem only by a vaccine. You can have a good vaccine, but if you have a poor health system, you go back to zero." So, what's stopping us from getting these vaccines into the arms of those who need it most? Delivering vaccines to the world's poorest regions requires a collaborative effort that leverages multiple technologies and involves diverse groups of people. But it can be done. As Dr. Adrian Hill noted, childhood mortality in Africa dropped by nearly 50% between 2000 and 2015 because large-scale manufacturers in Asia began producing affordable vaccines for broader distribution. Currently, nearly all African children are vaccinated with up to 11 vaccines, so the infrastructure is there, and the price for this vaccine is falling. It will take time, but it is doable. Dr. Olotu stressed that for malaria elimination to succeed, African governments must prioritise and invest more rather than relying too much on foreign aid. The lack of political will, he said, slows action. "I come from Tanzania," he said, "we've been doing all this great (clinical) work, and I'm not very happy, for instance, that we haven't yet made our decision on which vaccine we are going to roll out." We are undoubtedly at an exciting turning point, but there is still much work to be done. We need more advocacy, awareness - even storytelling - and from within Africa as we shift from a general apathy that malaria will always be with us to a belief that we have the tools to beat one of the world's deadliest diseases. 🗨️ We share an extract below, 📺 but catch the full conversation on our YT channel here: https://bit.ly/3NKP5Zl #R21MalariaVaccine #VaccinesWork #NoMoreMalaria Dele Olojede Dr. Sizakele M. STIAS: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study

#TheBattleforLaikipi, directed by daphne matziaraki and Peter Murimi, is an award-winning documentary about a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in the Laikipia plateau in Kenya. A severe drought and a changing climate fuel the historical land dispute: the pastoralists seek grazing for their cattle, and the ranchers are protecting their borders. In this The Guardian review, Saeed Kamali Dehghan reviews the film but also pulls the curtain back a little on the filmmaking process, particularly the delicate and difficult balancing act the filmmakers held to tell this important story. Shot over six years, Matziaraki says, "It was a constant challenge to film with both sides of the conflict, stay neutral and continue to nourish the trust and intimacy while keeping ethical boundaries." For Murimi, the biggest obstacle was their unconscious bias, "Sometimes this unconscious bias bleeds into your work. Actually, when we were marrying this film together, we really had to challenge each other, and I found that a very rewarding process." The filmmakers' deliberate act of reckoning with their own limited perspectives to better understand the conflict seems like the very thing that may have helped the protagonists in the film itself. "While making the film, we were surprised by the fact that the people who share that same landscape barely knew each other and did not truly understand one another," says Matziaraki. And while the particulars of this story reflect the particulars of Kenya's history, the complex issues of land, of belonging and home, the injustices of settler colonialism, and the battle for resources against a changing climate - these are ongoing in multiple places today. Films like this underscore the important role storytellers play in bearing witness, but also in resisting the single story; "When we reject the single story, when we realise that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise." #ChimamandaNgoziAdichie Watch the trailer here: https://lnkd.in/ddzT-A3J And read the Guardian article here: https://lnkd.in/d5-Hk5Pq And to keep up-to-date with the film by following them here: https://lnkd.in/dYNpR5EN Toni Kamau We Are Not The Machine Dr. Sizakele M. Dele Olojede

📢The Africa In the World 2024 festival highlights video is out! It's a whistle-stop tour of the festival, from ground-breaking malaria vaccines, Africa's climate opportunities, AI for 8 billion (not 8 billionaires) to the recent protests in Kenya, the importance of leadership, and an operatic adaptation of Zakes Mda’s Heart of Redness, to name a few. We've tried to capture both the heart of the festival but also the fine-grainedness of some of our discussions. ✨You can catch the full festival video on our YT channel here: https://lnkd.in/d6DP-QPT as well as the longer-form discussions from all our festivals - so don't forget to subscribe. Thank you to all our speakers, guests, partners and supporters. Dele Olojede Dr. Sizakele M. Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede Abeba Birhane Ally Olotu Adrian Hill Alix Dunn Reza Daniels Karla González Carvajal James Mwangi Tulio de Oliveira Dare Okoudjou john deasy Christine Mungai Edward Kirumira Ann Lamont John Simpkins Nozipho Tshabalala Standard Bank Group STIAS: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, Luminate, the V&A Waterfront, Toyota SA, Spier Wine Farm. #africaintheworld #africaintheworld2024 #Africanleadership #dialogue